Greenlight Research - Searches for holidays to Africa overtake North America and close gap with Europe

Online holiday searches totalled 3.1 million at the latter end
of 2011 and the African continent saw a surge of queries far
exceeding those for the Caribbean, Far East or South East Asia,
according to leading digital marketing agency, Greenlight's latest
report '
Holidays Issue 11'.

Greenlight's report which profiles search behaviour in the
holidays sector, found consumer searches for short haul and long
haul destinations increased by 7 per cent and 8 per cent,
respectively, since its previous report (August 2011).

Africa steals a march on North
America

The research shows European destinations dominated in 2011,
accounting for the Lion's share of UK consumer holiday search
queries, with North America following suit for the best part.
However, things took a dramatic turn in November, when Africa
overtook North America to become the second most popular holiday
hotspot search-wise, accounting for 17 per cent of online
holiday-related searches. (Number of searches by geographic
region shows below. If you are unable to view the table please
contact the press office)

Number of
searches by geographic region (November 2011)

RegionNo. of
Searches% share of
holiday searches

Europe
573,036
47%

Africa
211,349
17%

North America
186,740
15%

Caribbean & South America 106,061
9%

Far East & Australasia
84,054
7%

Middle East & South Asia
64,013
5%

Source: Greenlight

Turkey and Egypt most popular
destinations

The search term 'Turkey holidays' was queried 49,500 times,
accounting for 9 per cent of all short haul holiday destination
searches, mainly within Europe. It was followed by 'Cyprus
holidays' and 'Greece holidays' with 33,100 and 22,200 searches,
respectively.

Egypt proved to be the most popular long haul destination with
the search term 'Egypt holidays' queried 60,500 times.

Thompson, Virgin and Saga most visible
sites

The report analyses which brands and review sites were the most
visible in both natural* and paid media** results and hence
received the greatest share of consideration when UK consumers
searched for holidays on Google UK.

In natural search, Thomson was the most visible website for
short haul holiday searches attaining a 64% share of voice whilst
Saga was the most visible advertiser in paid media.

Long haul holidays attracted 652,000 searches. Virgin Holidays
was the most visible website in natural search. It was visible to a
volume of 346,525 searches, attaining a 53 per cent share of voice.
It was also the most visible advertiser with a 38 per cent share of
visibility in the paid media space.

Thomson and Thomas Cook were the most visible brands across the
social media platforms analysed, with both achieving a Klout score
of 53. Thomas Cook also had the highest number of followers on
LinkedIn whilst Last Minute had the largest following on its
Twitter account (16,135).